raKnizek
Member
Went to make a lane change yesterday and noticed I have two different side view mirrors.
My 2000 had the driver door replaced by the previous owner. I never bothered to look up the VIN etched on the glass until today when I noticed the side mirrors are different. My driver mirror is a from a '99 and the passenger mirror is the updated 2000+ design. I couldn't find this info elsewhere on here so I thought it would be interesting to compare the two designs. They are actually pretty different.
The purpose of the redesign was to improve wind noise so its not surprising to see that the older design is much more square and blocky.
Front view, 99 on top
The top corner closest to the window is what I finally noticed after driving this thing for the last few years. It has a much larger radius. The top edge, outside edge, and two outside corners appear to remain largely the same. The chamfered corner near the window is much larger on the updated design. I have not taken measurements but anecdotally id say any difference in mirror surface area is negligible.
Rear view, 99 on top
From the rear you can see how much smoother the surface is of the updated design. The top corner closest to the window is cut much more aggressively than the old design. It does not look like they touched the mount on the door.
The updated design surely has less drag and makes less noise overall but it probably also directs the air in a more favorable way
Makes you wonder if Toyota was running CFD to test this or if they just tried a bunch of different designs until they were satisfied.
My 2000 had the driver door replaced by the previous owner. I never bothered to look up the VIN etched on the glass until today when I noticed the side mirrors are different. My driver mirror is a from a '99 and the passenger mirror is the updated 2000+ design. I couldn't find this info elsewhere on here so I thought it would be interesting to compare the two designs. They are actually pretty different.
The purpose of the redesign was to improve wind noise so its not surprising to see that the older design is much more square and blocky.
Front view, 99 on top
The top corner closest to the window is what I finally noticed after driving this thing for the last few years. It has a much larger radius. The top edge, outside edge, and two outside corners appear to remain largely the same. The chamfered corner near the window is much larger on the updated design. I have not taken measurements but anecdotally id say any difference in mirror surface area is negligible.
Rear view, 99 on top
From the rear you can see how much smoother the surface is of the updated design. The top corner closest to the window is cut much more aggressively than the old design. It does not look like they touched the mount on the door.
The updated design surely has less drag and makes less noise overall but it probably also directs the air in a more favorable way
Makes you wonder if Toyota was running CFD to test this or if they just tried a bunch of different designs until they were satisfied.
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